In stringed musical instruments such as guitars, violins, pianos, etc. it is ocasionally necessary to replace the strings due to breakage, brand or size preference, deterioration of sound quality or other factors. This is particularly true in the case of guitars and bass guitars the strings of which need to be replaced fairly frequently.
When changing of a string or strings of a musical instrument becomes necessary a problem almost always arises in that strings for a given type of stringed instrument are usualy sold in lengths intended to be long enough to be fitted to any variation of said given type of stringed instrument with some extra string length left to spare. However, unless the extra string is trimmed, either before or after fitting the string to the instrument, it becomes an unasthetic and or functional nuisance as well as a safety hazard. Therefore, it is the most common practice to trim away the extra string as a part of the normal string instalation procedure.
Normaly, trimming of the instrument string is accomplished either by means of wire cutters, which are an additional expense for the user and not always available, or by manualy "crimping" or distressing the material of the string at a selected spot which corresponds to the desired length of the string and then applying enough tension to the string to cause it to break at the distressed section thereof. This method is both time consuming and dangerous to the user in that the user is at considerable risk of having his or her hand cut by the string while applying tension thereto.
There is known in the prior art a device, U.S. Pat. No. 4,192,213, which overcomes these difficulties by providing a guitar with means for accomodating special strings which have balls on both ends thereof (double ball end strings) and which are of a predetermined length that is appropriate for said guitar.
There is however a disadvantage with this system in that in many places in which conventional single ball end strings are readily avialable for purchase, the double ball end strings are not. Furthermore the double ball end strings are almost allways more expensive and the brand selection much more limited than conventional single ball end strings.